White House, White Dress

One more picture of a President’s daughter in a white dress—at least until we get a look at whatever Chelsea and her parents spent all those millions on this weekend—and then we will return to more important issues. (Like the National Popular Vote, maybe—see Hendrik Hertzberg for that—or when Alex Rodriguez will get around to hitting his six-hundredth home run.) Here’s Lynda Bird Johnson, who later attended Tricia Nixon’s wedding wearing a midiskirt and cutaway boots, with her new husband, Chuck Robb, the future Virginia governor and senator, on December 9, 1967. (He was, as the picture suggests, a Marine officer at the time, and served in Vietnam.) Seven weeks later, the Tet Offensive began, and by March her father had announced that he wasn’t running for reëlection—his Presidency diminished by an escalating war. It’s the sort of picture and period that makes one anxious for the next volume of Robert Caro’s L.B.J. biography.